


Dark Places

by Oparu



Series: Shards and Fairy Tales [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/F, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-22
Updated: 2010-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alliance collaborator scientist Kathryn Janeway runs into a Terran rebel Beverly Crusher in a dark alley. (Deep Space 9's mirror universe)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Places

Intendant Ro had no tolerance for tardiness. Kathryn Janeway, PhD, Terran scientist in the employ of the Alliance, hurried through the busy streets of the commerce planet. She'd only meant to buy a few things, erridinite, because it was so hard to find on Alliance worlds, and woori crystals.

She'd gotten distracted, as she often did, by the chaos and noise of commerce planets. They were dirty, crowded, lawless places and she always tried to avoid them. Kathryn was no good at crowds, or dirt. Her laboratory was clean; neat and that was the way she liked things. She wasn't very good at dealing with change or chaos. Science and her quiet little lab was all she had and all she wanted. She served the Intendant, kept her head down and had time to study halo objects when she was collapsing stars for the Alliance.

Kathryn tried not to think about the outcomes of her work. Her father and sister were kept safe and lived well because she was of use to the Alliance, and had been since she'd scored so well on the aptitude test they gave all slaves before assigning them value as children. If she wasn't, they'd suffer the fate of her mother: dying a slow death of disease and want.

She was almost to the spaceport, almost back to the cleanliness and quiet of the Intendant's ship, when chaos came after her.

Rebels, dirty, wild Terran rebels, ran past her, firing phasers at the guards, screaming into the crowd moments before one of the multiple Alliance security points exploded.

Kathryn hadn't seen an explosion since she was a child, and the air seemed to catch fire around her and suck her in. She put her hands over her head, crouching and curling into a tight little ball against one of the buildings. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe and the air around her stung her lungs like burning sandpaper tearing the tissues and rubbing them raw.

Time stopped, filling her perception with hell and darkness. Smoke came later, and Kathryn slowly realised that time was passing. The fire was burning the rubble, and with the smoke came the acrid scent of scorched flesh. There were dead and injured people, was she one of them? Was she waiting to die? Would it hurt? Were her nerves just waiting to inform her of the terrible pain of being burned alive?

Something cool grabbed her wrist, then another hand, she knew now it was a hand, grabbed her shoulder and lifted her up. Kathryn's eyes focused on the face of a human woman. Bright blue eyes, red hair tied back tightly, and old scars marked her was someone who would have been beautiful. Perhaps enough to grace the Intendant's renowned harem, if she'd been fortunate enough to be found young, before she was scarred.

The woman's lips moved, but Kathryn's ears were full of a dull hissing. She shook her head, unsure wether to grab this woman as her saviour or demand to be released back to the Alliance and safety.

Unable to hear, too frightened to speak, Kathryn let this woman drag her away from the horror of the explosion. Through dark alleys and crowds of onlookers, they disappeared. Kathryn clung to her, the battered angel who'd pulled her from the attack, and when they stopped, the woman tried to speak again. They were in a dim, back room of somewhere dingier than Kathryn had ever been.

Shaking her head, Kathryn stammered something and the woman's gentle eyes softened in sympathy. A cool hand stroked Kathryn's hair back away from her ear.

Lifting a hand, the woman gestured for her to wait. She was speaking, but Kathryn understood none of it. Perhaps the woman was speaking to calm her, even though she could not hear. A battered medkit emerged from behind a scrap of cloth and the tricorder that came from it had seen better days decades ago when black and chrome had been used. As the woman scanned her, Kathryn discovered her injuries along with her rescuer. Her hands were burned, so was her right leg and a significant portion of her right arm. A device flashed near her ears, and the hissing faded away. Sound returned, fuzzy and indistinct.

"I'm going to start with your leg. It's bleeding."

The woman's voice was soft and calming. For an agonising moment, Kathryn remembered her mother, who had been calm and gentle.

"Who are you?"

The woman tore Kathryn's trousers, baring her leg all the way up her hip. She was right, Kathryn's leg was bleeding from more than burns. Flying debris had cut her deeply. Looking at the blood running down her pale thigh turned her stomach and Kathryn winced and turned away, gripping the table behind her with tight knuckles.

"Just a Terran, a slave, and not a very good one at that."

The woman's smile was grim but there was real humour in her eyes.

"I'm just terrible at ore processing."

Kathryn held the table, trying to ignore the throbbing in her leg, and the screaming agony of her scorched hands and arm. She'd seen the ore processing centres and the horrible conditions the Terran slaves worked in there. She couldn't imagine this woman there, this angel with an antique medical kit and pungent smelling salve, but perhaps that was where her scars had come from. The double lines on her left cheek, and the mark along her jaw had come from somewhere. Was it from that dreadful place?

"This won't heal all pretty like an Alliance medical centre, it will sting, then itch while it heals. You'll get used to the smell."

It wasn't a bad smell, something herbal and sharp, like lemon peel. Kathryn smiled weakly.

"It's nice."

"Well, you know what to ask for on your next birthday. Give it time and it'll be all right. Don't push it. No dancing for the Intendant for a few days."

Another salve, this one white and soft went on Kathryn's arm. The woman's fingers were quick and efficient. Everywhere she touched went cool and the pain vanished.

"There you go." The woman took a cloth and rubbed ash from Kathryn's face."Good as new."

"Who are you?"

"No one of importance."

"But you must--" Kathryn coughed, her lungs protesting their abuse.

"Drink." The woman pressed a cup into her hand.

Gulping whatever it was, some kind of weak juice that tasted faintly of coconut, Kathryn followed the woman with her eyes as she circled the room, checking the windows and the gaps in the wall.

"Do you have a name?"

"Slaves don't need names. Didn't they teach you that in the Intendant's bedchamber?"

Kathryn blushed. "No, I don't--"

"You're not part of the harem, right, right. I forget. You're just her little pet scientist."

Kathryn tried her leg, which worked remarkably well and only felt vaguely numb instead of throbbing. "No. You don't understand."

"It's all right." The woman waved her quiet. "We've all done things we're not proud of to keep out of the Alliance's way." Darkness passed through her eyes and that story faded back into memory. Whatever it was.

She sighed, relenting before she offered her name.

"Beverly."

"It's pretty."

"Sure beats Terran five-five-two-Beta-Charlie." Beverly chirped, showing the tattooed mark on her neck when she lifted her hair. "Nothing like Doctor Janeway though."

Kathryn winced again, for the first time in her life feeling as if the degree she'd worked so hard to obtain was a burden.

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"Frown." Beverly tapped Kathryn's forehead. "You'll ruin your pretty face."


End file.
